Tensions continue to mount as fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine persist globally. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a press conference on Friday that Russian president Vladimir Putin has built up the military presence along the Ukraine border, larger in scale and scope than we have seen in recent memory," per BuzzFeed News. In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said world leaders' rhetoric about a possible incursion are "causing 'panic' and destabilizing [the economy], according to CNN. He told foreign reporters on Friday that the Kremlin has been a threat for years and Ukrainians have "learned to live" with it, CNN reported.
The president said U.S. troops are headed to Eastern Europe. But Biden and other officials say any deployment will be to shore up NATO.
Ukraine troops train to use British anti-tank missiles as Russian threat builds.
Forward Observations has at least twice now ran around playing soldier and promoting his military lifestyle brand with special forces teams in eastern Ukraine and at some very frontline positions, including one I recently visited.
As Russian troops amass on the approaches to Ukraine, Ukrainian citizens are bracing themselves for war. “Emergency kit” is a phrase I hear used more and more among my friends and acquaintances all over the country; the question on everyone’s mind is whether there will be an attack. I have been asked this numerous times over the past few weeks, and I cannot provide a satisfactory answer. The only thing I am sure about is that every bit of moral, political and military support that Ukraine gets from its friends and allies makes an invasion less likely. The crisis erupted on December 17 when Russia presented the west with an unexpected ultimatum. Its list of demands included a commitment in writing to halt any further eastward expansion of NATO, the removal of multinational NATO troops from Poland and the Baltic States, and the possible withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Europe. Most crucial was that Ukraine never be allowed to join the alliance. The demands were considered non-starters in Washington and found unacceptable by all members of NATO. The result is that we now find ourselves locked in the most intense diplomatic confrontation between east and west since the end of the Cold War.
There are significant differences between this crisis and previous ones. Most important is the emergence of China as the leading partner in what began as the Sino-Soviet alliance, accompanied by the reduction of the former Soviet Union to the territory of Russia — a state whose economy is not in the world’s top 10.
These changes are crucial for understanding Russia’s foreign policy today. Its aggression towards Ukraine can be seen as part of an attempt to turn the clock back to Soviet times and reinstate Russian control over the former Soviet space — or at least limit western influence over what used to be Moscow’s east European empire. So does Vladimir Putin want to re-establish the Soviet Union, as is occasionally suggested today? Not really. His goal is rather to reinstate or maintain the Kremlin’s control over the former Soviet space more efficiently by creating dependencies, preferably ruled by autocrats, in place of the former Soviet republics — an imperial power structure with him as the ruler of rulers at the top. History cannot tell us what might or might not happen tomorrow. But what it can do is provide a better understanding of how we got to the situation we are in today and what is at stake — especially as in this case the discipline of history, or at least a version of it, is right at the heart of the dispute.
A likeness of Vladimir Putin used for target practice at an Ukraine military base last week © New York Times/Redux/Eye vine, The current crisis is a reminder that the dissolution of the Soviet Union — closely associated in the public mind with Mikhail Gorbachev’s resignation as president of an already non-existent country on Christmas Day 1991 — was not a one-act play. It is, rather, a continuing saga with numerous sequels; a process rather than an event. Last July, Putin published a long essay specifically dealing with the history of Russo-Ukrainian relations. The key argument of the article, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, was formulated in its very first paragraph. Referring to a recent press conference, Putin stated that “when I was asked about Russian-Ukrainian relations, I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people — a single whole. These words were not driven by some short-term considerations or prompted by the current political context.”
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